- Press releases and letters from the Green Party issued during the bombing.

- Background information on NATO's alleged war crimes, from MAICL.

- Articles by John Pilger, including a piece on the Rambouillet stitch-up.

Green Party AGM 1999

EMERGENCY MOTION

With regard to the recent NATO war against Yugoslavia, Conference notes:

1. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits violence to life and person. Article 51 of the 1977 Geneva Protocol I prohibits attacks on civilian populations; and specifically prohibits, as indiscriminate, attacks "which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof".

NATO’s widespread use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to cause similar problems to those in Iraq, including extremely high rates of birth defects.

2. Article 48 of Geneva Protocol I prohibits attacks on civilian objects, and regards this as the "basic rule" of international humanitarian law.

One NATO attack deliberately cut off power to 70% of Yugoslav homes. Another cut off water supplies to 40,000 people in Petrovaradin, and severely disrupted water supplies to 300,000 people in Novi Sad. An attack on a heating plant in Novi Beograd deprived some 300,000 people of heat.

NATO attacked some 68 petrochemical installations, factories and warehouses, including factories producing textiles, cigarettes, shoes, medicines and home appliances, and food storage facilities. NATO attacks on ‘civilian objects’ were in fact so wide-ranging that they left an estimated 500,000 people unemployed.

3. Article 85(3) of Geneva Protocol I prohibits attacks against works containing dangerous forces, as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and thus a war crime.

NATO deliberately destroyed an exclusively civilian chemical plant in Pancevo, inevitably releasing huge quantities of toxic matters into the environment, including chlorine and phosgene, and highly carcinogenic materials. This resulted in certain pollutant levels many thousands of times higher than safe levels being recorded as far away as Athens, and effects have been noted in Russia and Ukraine.

4. Security Council Resolution 808 (1993), Article 3, prohibits "wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity", and lists this as a war crime.

Amongst its thousands of bombing and missile attacks, NATO bombed the Ministry of Education in Novi Sad; premises which administered social welfare programmes; and bridges of no conceivable strategic relevance to the military situation in Kosovo, including a bridge which led to Hungary, which is a NATO country.

NATO bombarded over several hours during the middle of the day the city centre of Nis, in which there were no military targets at all. At least 13 people were killed, including a pregnant woman, and 60 injured, including some at a medical station and others at a hospital, at university, and in their homes or gardens. Unexploded cluster bomblets were left in the streets.

6. Geneva Protocol I requires military forces to take adequate precautions to ensure that a target is military and not civilian. However, NATO pilots were routinely ordered to operate at altitudes and in other ways which, by NATO leaders’ own admissions, made definite identification of targets difficult if not impossible.

7. Article 79 of Geneva Protocol I distinctly regards journalists as civilians at all times of war. However, NATO attacked some 27 broadcast installations, including an attack which killed at least 10 junior personnel at a TV studio in Belgrade.

Conference also notes that international lawyers in 4 NATO countries (Canada, Greece, UK and USA) have made formal submissions to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) requesting an investigation of NATO leaders for war crimes, and if their allegations are found to be accurate, for specific leaders to be indicted. The detailed allegations are supported by some 1500 individual testimonies of witnesses in Yugoslavia.

Conference therefore instructs GPEX to publicise the following statement:

a. The Green Party of England & Wales believes that there is a prima facie case that NATO governments, during their war against Yugoslavia, ordered the carrying out of numerous military acts which are prohibited by international law.

b. The Green Party stresses its abhorrence of all war crimes and all forms of terrorism, and believes that any properly substantiated case should be heard by the appropriate courts and tribunals.

c. The Green Party wishes specifically that ICTY conduct a thorough investigation into the war crimes allegedly committed by NATO as well as those allegedly committed by other parties during the recent war; and, if it finds that war crimes have been committed, that the persons liable in national and international law be prosecuted accordingly. To this end, it supports submissions made by the international lawyers referred to above.

MOTION ENDS

NOTES

NATO’s ultimatum over the Rambouillet ‘agreement’ was ‘an infringement of the Vienna Convention (Art 52) which states "A treaty, the signature to which has been obtained through the threat of force...is illegal and void"‘:

European Federation of Green Parties.

"The targeting by...NATO outside of Kosovo was clearly directed at terrorizing and crippling civilian society, as was the case with Iraq in 1991 and now....These targets confirm what the US has now announced - it will strike at food, fuel and other civilian essentials. The use of hunger as a weapon is...prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Protocol I Additional of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions":

Ramsey Clark, ex US attorney-general.

"Last night NATO bombs killed three year old girl whose name was Milica Rakic [in the bathroom of her flat]. Is she a military target? Or some 'collateral damage' like victims from refugee column, or from international train, or from Aleksinac and Pristina?

Do you know how small is coffin for three year old child, how small grave it makes?

Do you know how big hole it lefts in heart?":

Una Gulan, open letter to the world.

"Victory is the only exit":

Tony Blair.

POLICY BRIEFING ON THE CONFLICT OVER KOSOVO - 12th May 1999

Text by John Norris is based on the views of the Green Party Regional Council meeting in April 1999, amplified by subsequent research and consultation.

PART 1

OBJECTIVES

1. We recognise the historic origins and current causes of conflict in Yugoslavia. The Green Party seeks a sustainable future for Kosovo and the surrounding countries, as we do everywhere. In this case our objectives are:

a. an end to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo,

b. immediate humanitarian aid for Kosovar refugees,

c. the ultimate return of the Kosovar refugees to a Kosovo with security for all its people, whether of Albanian, Serb or other ethnic origin,

d. a peaceful and sustainable future for Kosovo and the surrounding countries in the Balkans.

2. We support peace, democracy and self-determination in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, as elsewhere. Any solution which lacks the confidence of the Kosovars will not be successful in bringing them home. However, we are not committed to support independence for Kosovo, the removal of the Milosevic regime, or the "degrading" the capability of Yugoslav military forces, however desirable any of those may be.

POLICY

3. We are prepared to support initiatives which offer at least partial progress towards our objectives.

4. We favour humanitarian and non-violent approaches, using diplomacy rather than military force.

5. We believe diplomatic initiatives for a solution should continue throughout, irrespective of military action.

6. We believe a solution should be sought under the aegis of the OSCE and UN, not NATO.

7. We are opposed to the current NATO bombing campaign as both widely damaging and ineffective in achieving a solution.

8. We would prefer any ground-based intervention to be agreed, peaceful and humanitarian. However, we would accept an opposed intervention if that were the only way to enable the refugees to return in security.

9. We are concerned about the environmental impact on Yugoslavia of military operations. In particular we oppose the use of depleted uranium munitions.

10. We are committed not only to support the return of the Kosovar refugees, but also:

a. immediate humanitarian aid to the refugees in camps and elsewhere,

b. offering them the option of resettlement in other countries,

c. after the conflict, additional European help for the reconstruction of Kosovo and the rest of the region as part of building a stable future and

d. offering countries there accelerated admission to the European Union if they so wish.

PART 2

GEOGRAPHY & HISTORY

20. The recent conflicts in Yugoslavia have their foundations in historic ethnic conflict, particularly in World War 2. The strains released by the death of Tito, and the situation created by imposition of Western economic models, led to the collapse of the federal state, and the tightening of Serb control of Kosovo.

DIPLOMATIC INITIATIVES

21. Greens want a non-violent peaceful solution of the crisis in Kosovo, as the best precursor of a secure and sustainable future for the Kosovars and others. This will be criticised by many as naive. However, that does not mean one should stop trying for it.

22. Irrespective of military action, we want diplomatic initiatives to continue. We would oppose military actions to

forestall or prevent diplomatic progress, as happened in the Falklands War. We are prepared to support diplomatic initiatives which would produce progress even if they do not go as far as we would wish - for example, the recent German suggestion of a 24hr cessation of bombing for Milosevic to respond with troop

withdrawals.

23. A particular concern will be the question of good faith. In the opinion of NATO Milosevic is not to be trusted, having made an agreement last year he failed to keep. Similarly, it has been suggested that the NATO terms at Rambouillet were an ultimatum unacceptable to any sovereign country. Much "diplomacy" during the crisis has seemed closer to propaganda than serious offers and negotiations.

24. It is essential that diplomatic resolution be sought in a UN and particularly OSCE context, which will involve both NATO countries and Russia without allowing the particular interests of either to overshadow the needs of those actually involved in Yugoslavia. We should be clear that the Russians are quite as self-interested in appearing the protector of the Balkans as is NATO in expanding a continuing role.

25. There is a need for a regional Conference of the Balkan and neighbouring countries, and probably its expression in a continuing regional organisation. Without such a comprehensive approach it will be a matter of fire-fighting one problem after another, just Kosovo has followed Bosnia. For example, Serbs have been expelled from the Krajina in Croatia, from parts of Bosnia, and may now have to leave Kosovo. If Serbia responds by resettling them at the expense of the Hungarian minority in the Voivodina, already discriminated against, will not Hungary expect NATO to intervene?

CURRENT NATO BOMBING CAMPAIGN

31. We are opposed to the current NATO bombing campaign because it is killing people and doing much damage without contributing to any acceptable resolution of the problems of Kosovo and the Kosovars. As a strategy it does not meet the criteria for a "just war" that the reason be sufficient and the means proportional to

the ends.

32. Additional arguments against the bombing campaign is that without UN sanction it is aggression, and that it is beyond the terms of NATO. Many Greens are opposed to such military action on principle, but the agreed position is _not_ that pacifist view, though it covers it.

33. The campaign has been strategically and tactically inept. It opened with a declaration that the campaign would consist only of aerial bombardment. Freed of concern about other intervention, the Serb command were able to keep their heavy forces under cover from air attack, and give the green light for ethnic cleansing by paramilitaries immediately.

34. The bombing has been presented as a short campaign to break Yugoslavia's will and ability to resist NATO demands. This theory goes back to the apostles of air power such as Douhet between the World Wars, and has never been proven. The campaign has also been presented as aimed at the Serb forces in Kosovo, but the damage has been overwhelmingly to Yugoslavia's infrastructure and economy. It has been a "counter value" bombardment, _not_ the claimed "counter force" strategy. Destruction of oil storage, refineries and chemical works has caused extensive pollution, and the use of depleted uranium in cruise missiles is a longer term

threat to the environment and health.

35. Restrictions on risk to the aircraft and pilots, and on collateral damage to civilians on the ground, have worked against each other. They have required air forces to use tactics which can assure the required results only in good conditions, so that many missions are aborted. This actually prolongs the agony, by giving the defenders a false impression of security.

36. Nor when dropped have the much vaunted "smart bombs" etc always hit the right targets. The NATO bombing campaign is overwhelming a US campaign. Other individual contingents are little more than token forces. As Alan Clark, MP, put it in the Commons, US air power "is the worst instrument to let loose in a conflict where the distinction between combatant and non- combatant is often variable and elusive". Indeed it is; during

World War 2, some US infantry referred to it as the "American Luftwaffe", and in the Gulf War there were as many British casualties from such US "friendly fire" as from the Iraqis. With this history destroying refugee convoys and hitting the Chinese Embassy through poor intelligence are no surprise.

37. After 50 days, there is no sign that the campaign has achieved its claimed objectives. Yugoslavia is united against NATO. Political opposition to Milosevic has been undermined in Serbia, and autonomous Montenegro left with no choice but to go along despite protests. Despite widespread damage to Yugoslavia's infrastructure, its armed forces remain in full control and ethnic cleansing is continuing in Kosovo. The bombing campaign has achieved nothing for the Kosovars except to make some feel better now that Serbs are suffering too.

38. Green Parties across Europe and around the world are mostly united against the NATO bombing campaign. The Green Party has taken this position repeatedly, as has the Scottish Green Party. The European Federation Committee are clear this is the view of the majority of member parties, though its expression varies. Some Greens, particularly in the US, have gone further and demanded a pacifist adherence to non-violence, opposing any form of military action.

39. The main exceptions are the French and German Green Parties. Both are in coalition governments, and Die Gruenen's Joschka Fischer is the German Foreign Minister. Their parliamentary representatives have given qualified support for the bombing. This has led to major divisions in the German party, being addressed at a special congress on 13th May. The Albanian Green Party has supported military action against the Serbs.

GROUND INTERVENTION

41. Increasingly it seems that the objective of enabling the Kosovars to return to a secure future in Kosovo will not be achieved without intervention on the ground. This was the most difficult part of the Regional Council discussion.

42. It concluded that we would support intervention on the ground in Kosovo to enable the Kosovars ultimately to return if there were no other way. The extent of our support or acceptance would depend on the nature of that intervention and under whose control it was. Ideally we would like the intervention to have only humanitarian and peacekeeping roles. However, we would accept an opposed intervention if that were necessary.

43. Neither the diplomatic initiatives we support nor the bombing campaign we oppose have led to any indication that sufficient intervention to do the job on the ground would be accepted by the Yugoslav government. This presents Greens with two difficult choices, on the nature of intervention and its control.

43. Our Green policies are clear that where appropriate we are prepared to support such humanitarian, peace-keeping military interventions under the aegis of the OSCE and UN. It is badly needed on the ground in Kosovo to end ethnic cleansing, protect the Kosovars still there and enable others to return. However, are we prepared to accept such military intervention if it is opposed by Yugoslav forces, if that is the only way to achieve the objective? On balance, the Regional Council was.

44. Our Green policies are also clear that we favour the use of the OSCE and UN rather than NATO command. If a military intervention we would otherwise accept were under NATO command, would we oppose it simply because of that? The Regional Council felt it would reduce the acceptability.

45. Some party members consulted have expressed concern about this. They feel that even by accepting such a military intervention, let alone supporting it, we would be going against our peace and defence policies, which favour non-violence and oppose NATO. However, we need also to uphold our policies on human rights, and to oppose ethnic cleansing. It is a question of the lesser of two evils. Our acceptance would be qualified. There would be no question of accepting NATO objectives beyond those we have specified; we would oppose excessive military action, as we have over the futile bombing campaign. An example would be our opposition to the use of depleted uranium munitions.

46. At the time of writing, it is not clear whether a ground intervention is likely, opposed or not. A number of points may be useful on the subject if it arises:

a. The forces currently available to NATO in Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia are sufficient only for humanitarian and agreed peacekeeping duties. An opposed intervention would require much greater forces, probably at least 100,000 troops. In particular it would need heavier armoured forces and artillery. The time to assemble these is estimated at two months. Such a campaign would need to be completed and Kosovo secured for the refugees

sufficiently before the onset of winter in October. It is clear that the window for decision is limited.

b. A sign of purpose will be the command arrangements. Whatever Greens may think of NATO, one thing it has got is experience of a working command structure. If an opposed intervention is a possibility, in practice it will be under NATO command, whatever the window dressing.

c. Any intervention in Kosovo will require secure and adequate lines of supply and reinforcement for its axes of advance. While NATO has negotiated arrangements for the use of neighbouring countries' airspace, its arrangements for lines on the ground are less advanced, though it has reached agreement with Slovakia to

link new NATO members the Czech Republic and Hungary, the only one bordering Serbia. The obvious line runs from Salonika in Greece via Macedonia, both countries with strong opposition to intervention. The lines available through Albania are much inferior in ports and roads.

d. With a-c in place, a sign that an opposed intervention was envisaged would be a switch of the bombing campaign if that were continuing or restarted. It would be necessary to use counter force targeting, hitting Serb forces and interdicting their lines of supply and reinforcement.

47. It is apparent to all informed commentators in a position to say so that the NATO bombing campaign is a failure, and that ground operations will be required if a peaceful solution cannot be found. The difficulties of ground operations are not underestimated, but they are possible given the resources and time.

48. However, political and public opinion in NATO countries does not yet reflect that reality. Having begun with assurances that ground troops would not be committed, the leading NATO powers are having great difficulty both internally and in the alliance in building support for a ground campaign. In particular it seems that some NATO governments prepared to accept the bombing are opposed to a ground campaign. These include Italy and Greece, both of which are crucial for the logistics of such a campaign.

HELPING KOSOVARS

51. Hundreds of thousands of Kosovars are now refugees, in Kosovo itself, in neighbouring countries, and in more distant countries. People need help immediately. The refugee flow from Kosovo into Albania and Macedonia has swamped resources there. A particular need is to begin restoring a semblance of civil society among the refugees. There is huge job of administration and identification to be done in uniting individuals with their families. Much of what can be done in future will depend on that - including a return to Kosovo.

52. There is little that can be done from outside to help displaced people within Kosovo. Existence in any numbers in the forests is not sustainable for long, and certainly not beyond the summer. Refugees in Kosovo will escape, return to Serb control or die.

53. A particular group it is difficult to help is those who have taken refuge in the neighbouring Yugoslav republic of Montenegro. Though nominally autonomous, it is subject to both the federal Yugoslav National Army and the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The Montenegrin government has condemned both. Any operations against the Yugoslav military or economy should bear this in mind. Sanctions against Montenegro are likely to hit refugees there particularly hard.

54. Albania supports its ethnic cousins and is doing its best, but is simply unable to cope. It is itself trying to recover from the collapse of the Communist regime after the death of Hoxha, and subsequent civil war; the introduction of Western economic models has been a disaster. With foreign assistance, immediate camps were built on the frontier, and better refugee camps are being built in safer locations. However, many refugees are

unwilling to go because they are awaiting family members believed still in Kosovo.

55. The immediate need is to provide all Kosovar refugees with adequate accommodation for the summer, much of which will have to be improved for the winter which begins in October. Other necessities will be food and clothing. It is essential that additional humanitarian aid be provided, and that full support is given to the reconstruction of Albania as well.

56. Macedonia has been reluctant to admit refugees, insists on controlling them in camps, is unwilling to accept help to make those more attractive, and has transferred refugees to other countries without even sorting out families first. This is harsh, but understandable. Macedonia fears the impact of the Kosovar refugees on its own stability. It is itself ethnically mixed, with an Albanian minority, and has uneasy relations with its neighbours, all of whom, including Greece, have claims to its territory. Existence is a delicate balancing act. It fears a parallel of Israel's expulsion of Palestinians into Lebanon and Jordan, bringing one into chaos, averted only by a civil war in

the other.

57. The best policy will be to run down the refugee presence in Macedonia to levels which are judged tolerable by its government. Opposition will come not only from some refugees but also from those in the KLA and NATO wishing to use Macedonia as a military base. Macedonia sits astride the only good route for logistic support of a ground invasion into Kosovo.

58. While there is no wish to create a diaspora like that of the Palestinians, we should be prepared to help Kosovars resettle in other countries. Apart from Albania, the country most willing to help Kosovars has been Turkey, but few wish to relocate there.

59. At present only temporary resettlement is being considered, such as 12 months leave to remain in Britain and in Germany three months renewable during the conflict. There is a need to provide for some permanent resettlement, particularly for those with family links in their host countries or particular need to be resettled. There is a significant Kosovar community in Germany, and a small one in England, which sheds an interesting light on the decision to accommodate the first temporary refugees in Scotland.

RECONSTRUCTION

61. The NATO bombing campaign may have achieved nothing towards a solution, but it has done a great deal of damage to the infrastructure and economy of the current Yugoslavia (Kosovo, Serbia, the Voivodina and Montenegro), already weakened by sanctions during the Bosnian conflict. For example, nearly all the great bridges across the Danube have been "dropped". The river itself is effectively blocked, creating wider economic

damage. The longer the bombing continues, the more damage will be done.

62. In Kosovo, ethnic cleansing had already led to widespread destruction of Kosovar villages. "Scorched earth" to prevent the return of refugees has been characteristic of the conflicts in Yugoslavia. (Nor need we feel superior; exactly the same tactic was used when eliminating enclaves of housing occupied by the "other side" during the Troubles in Belfast.) An opposed invasion of Kosovo would cause even more damage where there was fighting or bombardment.

63. Estimates of the cost of repairing the damage to date are already in the billions.

64. A particular concern for Greens is the damage to the environment. Pollution has been caused mainly by bombing of oil storage and refineries, and other chemical industries, most of which are situated near rivers. A prospect more for the future is pollution by depleted uranium munitions.

65. We support additional European help for the reconstruction of Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia as part of building a stable future there. What is needed is a transfer of resources so that the local economy is rebuilt as part of reconstruction, not merely the transfer of a huge burden of debt and profitable opportunities for EU and US corporations. It is worth reflecting on the damage already done to the stability of Yugoslavia by the imposition of Western economic models, and the way they were abused in Albania.

66. The Green Party is deeply sceptical about the European Union as currently formed and run. However, the countries of former Yugoslavia and their neighbours may well feel that their choice is between being exploited by the EU outside it or inside it. We believe countries there should be offered accelerated admission to the European Union if they so wish (whatever we may think of it!).

Some Green Party press releases issued during the war:

Green Party press release

24th March 1999. For immediate release.

MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST KOSOVO WILL INTENSIFY THE SUFFERING AND SOLVE NOTHING

SAYS GREEN PARTY

The Green Party today, called on NATO to withdraw its threat of bombing Kosovo in favour of a large ground force of United Nations peace-keeping troops which would provide an opportunity for a peaceful solution to the political and humanitarian crisis in the region.

The Green Party is deeply distressed by threats of NATO strikes against fellow Europeans in Kosovo. Military strikes - of bombs and missiles - maybe the low-risk option as far as NATO personnel are concerned (if it disregards the reaction from Russia), but risks killing innocent civilians in Kosovo both directly, and by the likely intensification of efforts by Slobodan Milosevic. It also risks throwing the entire region into a full-blown war that will resolve nothing.

The Green Party believes that the current critical situation is the result of earlier inaction by the world's governments. It is clearly agreed that 'something must be done' about Milosevic to terminate the appalling ethnic

murder and terrorism, but because the NATO bombing raids are the only 'something' being presented this doesn't make it right. There is no history of people ever being bombed into co-operation - the idea that an act of war will bring Milosevic to the negotiating table is entirely ludicrous.

NATO missiles and bombs negate the risk of NATO personnel being killed in the short term. A less cowardly approach, however, would be to send in hundreds of thousands of United Nations peace-keeping ground troops to force a peaceful settlement (which would have been far less of a risk several months ago). Whilst NATO may be keen to find a role for itself, the United Nations is the appropriate body to deal with this dreadful situation.

Only a political solution aimed at the stability of the whole Balkan area can overcome the hardline attitudes of the protagonists.

Green Party Principal Speaker, Dr Mike Woodin, said today: 'An act of war against Kosovo by NATO is likely to inflame the plight of the Albanians and risks casting the entire region into an even deeper conflict. The inaction by the world's governments has made military intervention inevitable, but this should be in the form of an overwhelming number of UN peace-keeping ground troops, not hit and run bombing raids conducted from a safe distance.'

The Greens demand that instead of threats of war, emphasis be placed on confidence-building measures by the OSCE-mission, and humanitarian aid by human rights groups and peace teams. Human and financial resources should be invested in bringing peace to the region, in its economic rebuilding, in reconciliation measures, and in bringing it into the democratic European family.

Green Party press release (Archway)

24th March 1999. For immediate release.

GREEN PARTY APPALLED BY MEDIA RHETORIC OVER WAR IN KOSOVO

The Green Party today, appealed to the national media to show some respect for the seriousness of the situation in Kosovo and avoid headlines such as 'We Clobbered Sloba'.

The Green Party appreciates that the sight of large warplanes and missiles may, in some extremely perverse way, excite the headline writers of the tabloid press. However, it should be remembered that it is not Slobodan

Milosevic who is being 'clobbered' - he is safely tucked away in an underground bunker along with all the others responsible for crimes in the province - but largely innocent civilians. There are reports, after just the first night of NATO's own act of terrorism, that 50 civilians have been killed and 2,000 injured.

The Green Party maintains that the actions of NATO are unacceptable, that any amount of bombing will not bring Milosevic back to the negotiation table, and that the suffering in Kosovo will be intensified.

NATO missiles and bombs negate the risk of NATO personnel being killed in the short term. A less cowardly approach, however, would be to send in hundreds of thousands of United Nations peace-keeping ground troops to force a peaceful settlement (which would have been far less of a risk several months ago). Whilst NATO may be keen to find a role for itself, the United Nations is the appropriate body to deal with this dreadful situation.

Only a political solution aimed at the stability of the whole Balkan area can overcome the hardline attitudes of the protagonists.

Green Party Principal Speaker, Dr Mike Woodin, said today: 'An act of war against Kosovo by NATO is likely to inflame the plight of the Albanians and risks casting the entire region into an even deeper conflict. The inaction by the world's governments has made military intervention inevitable, but this should be in the form of an overwhelming number of UN peace-keeping ground troops, not hit and run bombing raids conducted from a safe distance.'

The Greens demand that instead of threats of war, emphasis be placed on confidence-building measures by the OSCE-mission, and humanitarian aid by human rights groups and peace teams. Human and financial resources should be invested in bringing peace to the region, in its economic rebuilding, in reconciliation measures, and in bringing it into the democratic European family.

5.4.99

Green Party press release

from the Defence spokesperson, Spencer Fitz-Gibbon

As Cook is accused of lying, Greens condemn government hypocrisy over refugees

Green Party defence spokesperson Dr Spencer Fitz-Gibbon commented on latest developments in Kosovo: 'First they claim their bombing will stop the ethnic cleansing, but predictably it speeds it up. Then Robin Cook claims the refugee crisis was unpredictable, when in fact it was foreseen and was in any case rather obvious - as this is the usual result of war in circumstances like this. 'But now we are treated to the spectacle of Tony Blair masquerading as the saviour of the people his bombing has helped turn into refugees. 'I wonder whether he will offer refugee status to Iraqi victims of the US-British bombing policy, or to East Timorese victims of New Labour's Hawks-to-Indonesia policy?'

He concluded, 'The level of US and British government self-delusion over this whole sad episode reinforces our view that not only is NATO an entirely inappropriate body to attempt to bring peace to the region, but UK ministers are evidently not up to the task. Had they put as much thought into the operation itself as they have put into their media campaign, they would have thought better of bombing in the first place.'

Background info: JOHN BRUTON, the former Irish Prime Minister, has accused Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, of not telling the truth about the refugee crisis prompted by attacks on Yugoslavia.

Mr Bruton, the leader of Ireland's Fine Gael main opposition party, said Mr Cook was "simply not making a truthful statement when he said no one could have foreseen a refugee crisis on the scale of the one now happening in the Balkans following the Nato decision to bomb Yugoslavia while refusing to commit ground troops under any circumstances".

The former Dublin premier added: "He is wrong. The present refugee crisis was not only foreseeable, it was foreseen. It is profoundly dishonest to pretend otherwise."

Mr Bruton said he had predicted the crisis before the bombing, and pointed to a prediction made in Berlin by the Swedish opposition leader and former Bosnia mediator Carl Bildt, who predicted one million refugees within two weeks of the start of bombing. Source: Flora community network.

ENDS

Green Party press release

14th May 1999. For immediate release.

GREEN PARTY OF ENGLAND AND WALES CONFIRMS ITS OPPOSITION TO NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA

Following the decision of its German counterparts to support the Nato bombing campaign, the Green Party of England and Wales wishes to make it quite clear that it is, for once, at variance with Die Grunen and confirms that it remains firmly opposed to Nato’s illegitimate action.

The Green Party of England and Wales is appalled by the actions of Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. However, it stated from the start, that Nato’s bombing campaign would do little but intensify the suffering, put civilians at

greater risk, and would be unlikely to resolve the conflict. There is no comfort in having been proved right.

Jean Lambert, Principal Speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales, said today: ‘Our Party remains philosophically linked with the German Greens and we shall continue to work closely with them through the European Federation of Green Parties. The German Greens have a right to support Nato’s campaign - we, along with many other Green Parties throughout the world, shall continue to oppose it.’

NOTES: The position of the Green Party of England and Wales…

1. We recognise the historic origins and current causes of conflict in Yugoslavia. The Green Party seeks a sustainable future for Kosovo and the surrounding countries, as we do everywhere. In this case our objectives are:

a. an end to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo,

b. immediate humanitarian aid for Kosovar refugees,

c. the ultimate return of the Kosovar refugees to a Kosovo with security for all its people, whether of Albanian, Serb or other ethnic origin,

d. a peaceful and sustainable future for Kosovo and the surrounding countries in the Balkans.

2. We support peace, democracy and self-determination in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, as elsewhere. Any solution which lacks the confidence of the Kosovars will not be successful in bringing them home. However, we are not

committed to support independence for Kosovo, the removal of the Milosevic regime, or the "degrading" the capability of Yugoslav military forces, however desirable any of those may be.

3. We are prepared to support initiatives which offer at least partial progress towards our objectives.

4. We favour humanitarian and non-violent approaches, using diplomacy rather than military force.

5. We believe diplomatic initiatives for a solution should continue throughout, irrespective of military action.

6. We believe a solution should be sought under the aegis of the OSCE and UN, not NATO.

7. We are opposed to the current NATO bombing campaign as both widely damaging and ineffective in achieving a solution.

8. We would prefer any ground-based intervention to be agreed, peaceful and humanitarian. However, we would accept an opposed intervention if that were the only way to enable the refugees to return in security.

9. We are concerned about the environmental impact on Yugoslavia of military operations. In particular we oppose the use of depleted uranium munitions.

10. We are committed not only to support the return of the Kosovar refugees, but also:

a. immediate humanitarian aid to the refugees in camps and elsewhere,

b. offering them the option of resettlement in other countries,

c. after the conflict, additional European help for the reconstruction of Kosovo and the rest of the region as part of building a stable future and

d. offering countries there accelerated admission to the European Union if they so wish.

General Rose is absolutely right. When you pursue a military option you must be prepared to go the distance. Otherwise you end up with a costly and inconclusive mess. History tells us that going the distance against violent dictators means wiping them out. They thrive on martyrdom to the point of Goetterdaemmerung. I don't believe Mr Blair understands this.

If NATO opts for war, this will mean, as General Rose points out, an army on the ground. Two analogies spring to mind: one is Vietnam, where the West lost. The other is the Gulf War, where the evil dictator kept his job but his country's economy, health and services were devastated (forcing a battered population more closely into the arms of its 'strong leader') - so the West may not have lost, but didn't win either.

Mr Blair has also failed to understand that relatively peaceful solutions usually involve leaving the other side a way to climb down without appearing to be humiliated. NATO offered a 'peacekeeping force' which would inevitably be seen as an act of aggression, or else bombing. Milosevic is now at bay and will inevitably fight, and his people will support him because from their perspective NATO is the aggressor. Mr Blair must now either come clean with the British public - that he intends to go the distance, whatever that may involve - or else adopt a more intelligent style of manoeuvre. Perhaps he might take a leaf from Sun Tzu's ancient text on the Art of War: that you must know the enemy; that you must never fight an enemy at bay; and that the acme of military skill is to win without fighting.

Today's Telegraph reports that Washington fears it is 'losing control' in the Balkans. As Washington was never in control in the first place, this provides an interesting insight into the control-freak mentality which runs the world's strongest military power. Had Americans learned from Vietnam, they would have known that bombing people doesn't usually make them inclined to obey you.

As Julianne Smith, senior analyst at the European Security desk at the British American Security Information Council recently said: 'Bombing is not a preventive tool, it is a consequence of not having any preventive tools. It's clear that the NATO bombings are not saving lives, instead they are contributing to the escalation of the conflict.'

Current US levels of self-delusion are truly dangerous. They are now escalating the bombing on the pretext that

the other side was responsible for the escalation. Now Russia is sending a small fleet to the Adriatic - which, incidentally, is argably less provocative a step than expanding NATO up to Russia's borders. But will the USA see this as someone else's escalation? And how will they respond to that?

The self-delusions are escalating too. The bombing will be stepped up - but the USAF is down to 100 cruise missiles. The US action is still 'in pursuit of the aims of the international community' - but is now opposed by China, Russia, India and Indonesia, countries with almost half the world's population between them. And three of these four are nuclear powers.

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, has pointed out the implications of recent US belligerence for arms control: that Russia has terminated its 'Millennium Bug' compliance programme with the US; that Ukraine is reportedly contemplating reversal of its non-nuclear status; and that the US bombing in Yugoslavia merely reinforces recent developments in the US military realm as a whole. The Senate recently voted to go forward with 'national missile defence', which threatens to abrogate the ABM treaty. The US is about to spend $60bn rebuilding its nuclear weapons research, development and production infrastructure. Its Secretary of Energy has announced that production of tritium - radioactive hydrogen used to boost the destructive power of nuclear weapons - is to be resumed. Unsurprisingly, the Russians have become resistant to ratifying the START II arms reduction treaty. As Cabasso puts it, 'We seem to be heading straight backwards into the Cold War.'

All this happens when a defensive alliance, having lost the enemy which brought about its inception, goes on the offensive in order to restore peace. Robert Hayden, Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, who has been deeply involved in attempts to mediate the crisis in Kosovo, has said that 'We have now shown that NATO is "credible" for doing something incredibly irresponsible.' The really frightening thing is that despite all his aggression, Uncle Sam seems convinced he's acting defensively. Uncle Sam is psychotic.

Unfortunately US delf-delusion provides the mirror into which Messrs Blair, Cook and Robertson gaze. Mr Cook describes how Milosevic *ought* to respond, as though Milosevic were a rat attached to an electrode. Mr Blair greets the news of Greek and Italian pleas for an end to the bombing with an assertion that NATO is united. Mr Robertson assures us that Milosevic is 'rattled, huddled in his bunker', but it isn't Milosevic's bunker where the atrocities are continuing. Mr Blair tells us that the air strikes are against the 'killing machine', but he is contradicted by General Sir Michael Rose, former UN commander in Bosnia, who points out that air strikes don't actually hit the gangs of thugs carrying out the atrocities.

Maybe Jacqueline Cabasso is wrong. Maybe we're not heading backwards into the Cold War; maybe August 1914 is our destination. Except that Uncle Sam and his devoted acolyte Tony Blair are behaving somewhat less rationally than the Kaiser.

Spencer Fitz-Gibbon

Defence spokesperson, England & Wales Green Party

Letter in Electronic Telegraph 31.5.99:

From Spencer Fitz-Gibbon

Defence spokesperson, England & Wales Green Party

0161 225 4863

War crimes?

Tony Blair and Bill Clinton are said to be glad that Milosevic has now been indicted for war crimes at The Hague. His indictment will help convince Westerners that the shredding of civilians with cluster bombs, and the liberal use of depleted uranium against future generations in Kosovo as well as in Serbia, are justifiable acts of peacemaking.

But as Walter Rockler, former Nuremberg Trials prosecutor, has said: "For some to shout 'war criminal' at Milosevic only emphasizes that those who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones. The Nuremberg Court found that to initiate a war of aggression, as the U.S. has done against Yugoslavia, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime."

Rockler is joined in his opinion by Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney-general - one of the top lawyers of the Western world - who has accused NATO of terrorism for deliberately striking at civilian and economic targets. Twenty Greek judges recently proclaimed NATO's war illegal. Two hundred prominent American Jews signed a letter echoing this sentiment, and also abhorring the NATO use of Holocaust analogies as an aid to the prosecution of an illegal campaign.

This, and the proportion of Greeks who want to see Messrs Blair and Clinton indicted for war crimes - 35% and 70% respectively (I don't know of any other polls) - seem to lend credibility to the attempt by Glen Rangwala, a Cambridge University international lawyer, to bring Tony Blair to The Hague too.

I would have two fears about these developments. Firstly, whilst I don't doubt for a minute that Mr Blair has participated in the ordering of various illegal military activities, I suspect he is unlikely to be found guilty. His appearance at the tribunal at the Hague would amount to the West trying the West, and it would doubtless find itself not guilty. This would then set the bad precedent that the West can, with impunity, indulge its GloboCop

role, circumventing the UN and deliberately devastating an 'enemy' economy, whenever it chooses.

Secondly, the indictment of Milosevic for war crimes is likely to close the door once and for all to any possibility of a negotiated settlement. You can't proclaim someone a war criminal and then accord them the negotiating rights of a national leader. If the said leader's followers don't oblige you by handing him over, with whom might you negotiate?

I instinctively mistrust conspiracy theories, but I wonder was this a calculated move? It would fittingly follow the Rambouillet tactic: issue an ultimatum you know would be entirely unacceptable to your opposite number -including an order to change his economic policy at gunpoint - call this a 'peace accord', and then punish him (or rather punish the people unfortunate enough to share the same country) with a sustained blitz deliberately targetted, as USAF General Short has admitted, on civilian life.

It really is becoming increasingly difficult to see a way out - except by means of a bloody NATO ground intervention leaving a legacy of mistrust, polarity and instability in the Balkans.

Or, perhaps, by following the Green proposal: acknowledge that the UN is a more appropriate arbiter of disputes than NATO, implement an immediate ceasefire, thereby create space for a Balkan conference to develop a long-term solution - and remove the threat posed by this war to global stability.

Incidentally, although the UK media don't seem to be seeing this as a 'political' issue, one can of course vote for the latter course of action on 10 June.

Yours sincerely, Spencer Fitz-Gibbon

Defence spokesperson, England & Wales Green Party

Overview of the UK Campaign to Indict NATO Leaders

Movement for the Advancement of International Criminal Law

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the Security Council in 1993 to prosecute individuals who have committed grave violations of international humanitarian law in the

territory of the former Yugoslavia. In early April 1999, as it became clear that NATO was deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in its war on Yugoslavia, and that the attacks were needlessly resulting in large-scale losses of human lives, a number of lawyers¹ groups in NATO countries began to collect evidence to submit to the ICTY to facilitate the prosecution of NATO leaders, strategists and policy-makers.

The lawyers¹ groups include organisations and associations from the UK, Canada and Greece. The UK group is the Movement for the Advancement of International Criminal Law (MAICL), based in Cambridge, UK. MAICL has been collecting eye-witness accounts of the NATO bombings, and extensive details from individuals who have specialist knowledge on particular sites that have been targeted by NATO. For example, it has collected testimonies from individuals who held senior positions in factories that have been repeatedly bombed by NATO, and who can testify that the factories manufactured civilian goods or provided civilian services alone; and from

people who witnessed the civilian deaths caused by missiles landing on civil infrastructure or in residential areas. Some 1000 individual testimonies had been collected by MAICL on 1 June 1999.

MAICL has argued that many of NATO¹s attacks amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law. In the laws of war, only military objects may be legitimately targeted. MAICL has specifically requested that the ICTY Prosecutor investigate and indict three individuals for preparing and directing NATO policies: Mr Tony Blair, Mr Robin Cook and Mr George Robertson. A number of specific attacks by NATO are examined in detail to substantiate the claims. These include:

- The attack on the Radio and Television Studios in Belgrade on 23 April, which killed 17 staff members. NATO leaders claimed that this was a legitimate target, as it produced ³propaganda². However, international law

specifically recognises that journalists are to be viewed as civilians in times of war. Therefore, NATO¹s bombardment of the studios was a deliberate attack upon civilians.

- The repeated attacks upon the city of Novi Sad, in Vojvodina province in the north of Yugoslavia. Novi Sad, on the banks of the Danube, is some 600km from Kosova, and attacks upon its civil infrastructure would have

had a minimal effect upon abuses of human rights in and forced deportations from Kosova. NATO destroyed all 3 of the bridges over the Danube, effectively cutting off the majority of residents of Novi Sad from their main hospital; hampering distribution of food from the fertile lands on north side of the river from reaching the rest of Yugoslavia; and seriously disrupting the water supplies to some 300,000 people who relied on the water pipes carried by the bridges. In addition, NATO has targeted the civilian administrative buildings and the television studios of Novi Sad. In many of these attacks, civilians near to the site of the blast were also killed.

- The attacks on the factories of Pancevo. Two petrochemical factories were targeted by NATO on 15 and 18 April 1999, resulting in extensive air pollution and the release of toxic chemicals and oil into the Danube. The

level of a carcinogenic substance in the air reached 10,600 times the recommended maximum amount due to these attacks.

- Attacks upon the city of Nis. Cluster bombs were dropped on Nis market square on 7 May, and its hospital was extensively bombed, resulting in some 13 deaths. Due to the lack of all legitimate military targets in the region, MAICL considers NATO¹s attacks to be an instance of wanton destruction. Cluster bombs often fail to explode until handled; in one previous instance, five young children were killed when they found and picked up unexploded cluster bombs.

- The electricity system of Yugoslavia was extensively bombed, resulting in some people have to do with electricity for three or more days. Hospitals and water supply stations were greatly affected.

- A number of instances where NATO failed to take sufficient measures to prevent the loss of civilian lives: these include the bombing of a bridge twice whilst a train was on it, killing 10 people; and the bombing of the Djakovica refugee convoy from a height of 5000 metres, which NATO later admitted left them unable to tell what they were bombing, killing some 74 people.

- A number of incidents in which NATO claims their attacks were justified because military objects were present; but where MAICL argues that the civilian deaths caused are clearly disproportionate to the military benefits. These include the bombing of the town of Korisa, in which some 87 people were killed; and the bombing of a prison in Istok, Kosova, in which up to 100 people may have died.

MAICL has compiled this information into three dossiers which have been presented to the ICTY, amounting to some 120 pages in total. On 9 June 1999, a representative of MAICL met the Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal,

Louise Arbour, with three of her senior legal staff, for three hours to discuss the information collected and to press for the indictment of NATO leaders.

MAICL is looking for organisations from the UK who would be willing to support this indictment process, and act as formal ³co-submittors² to the Tribunal. A list of the names of organisations who are already acting as

co-submittors will be sent on request. Organisations interested in this role are advised to look at the latest submission to the Tribunal, on <

http://ban.joh.cam.ac.uk/~maicl/> and to contact Mr Glen Rangwala on

<

gr10009@cam.ac.uk>.

Statement from the Green Ecological Party of Serbia: 11.05.99

Dear green friends,

I send you Green Ecological Party of Serbia`s (meeting held May 7, 1999) 15 point Statement about Kosovo / Federal Republic of Yugoslavia crisis. Your comments are welcome. Please keep in touch.

Everything best to you,

Borisa Antonijevic

Co-Chair of the Green Ecological Party of Serbia

The Green Ecological Party of Serbia

Statement about Kosovo/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) crisis:

1. Immediately stop NATO bombing and on the base of so far achieved military results reconsider other ways to influent Serbian political leadership. Find the way to punish guilty ones instead entire people saving in this way human lives, human health and environment.

2. Instead of bombs, cruise missiles and other kinds of sophisticated weapons NATO should immediately find the ways to broadcast 24 hours daily Radio and TV program spreading truth among citizens, army and police of

Serbia. In that way NATO can influent public opinion in Serbia who is still oriented to long lasting defense war against NATO thanks to awful anti NATO, anti American and anti entire western countries propaganda.

3. Catch the guilty ones, representatives of the government, political parties and other publicly exposed individuals who spread hate and intolerance against members of other nations as well as entire international

community. Those individuals with their activity caused ethnic clashes on Kosovo not protecting Serbian territory than his own privileges and Serbian inhuman regime. Those individuals with his activity for a long time violate

Human Rights of all citizens of Serbia, especially Albanian minority for a last 10 years. In that way, those individuals caused after all NATO intervention against FRY.

4. For all those activities those individuals should be trial on the International Court of Law.

5.Return of refugees to their homes if they want so, if not, one generous asylum policy should be introduced to them by international community.

6.If some refugees from FRY express wish to emigrate in particular country member of NATO, this country member of NATO should satisfy them.

7.To establish two mains international founds. First one for reconstruction of Kosovo, second for the rest of FRY.

8.To use this (unfortunate) opportunity to reconstruct FRY in a more sustainable way. In that direction help of developed countries with their knowledge of protecting environment and recycling is widely needed.

9.To prevent selling of dirty technologies to Serbia during its reconstruction.

10. Support chemical free reconstruction of Serbian agriculture, according to suggestions listed in Agenda 21, in a more biologically sustainable, traditionally and healthy way.

11. To establish well equipped and well experienced international team to explore level of radiation and chemical pollution of Kosovo and FRY and recommend necessary measures in direction to recover human health and environment.

12. To establish on Kosovo nationally mixed police forces from the Serbs, Albanians on Kosovo and international military/police forces to protect Human Rights of all citizens.

13. UN and/or OSCE should help in rebuilding broken bridges among the Balkan people of different nationalities using first positive experiences from the Green Network Balkan, cooperation project of Sweden Green Forum, Bosnian Eco-movement Greens of Zenica and the Green Ecological Party of Serbia. Green politics should be a backbone of implementation values from Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this aria, after tragic failure of all nationalistic political options.

14. OSCE and/or UN, together with greens should develop anti-war Balkan prevention program on the base of values from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

15. To establish educational program for youth and elder to teach them how to respect Human Rights of other people as a key for respecting Human Rights of them selves.

The Green Ecological Party of Serbia

Sumadijskih Brigada 44

34 310 Topola, Serbia (FRY)

ph: + 381 34 812 724

ph/fax: + 381 34 811 537

e-mail:

zeps@eunet.yu

John Pilger article on the Rambouillet stitch-up

The Sydney Morning Herald

Friday, May 14, 1999

JOHN PILGER

Crusade for civilisation all a lie

A document reveals that Serbia was stitched up over the NATO bombing.

THE justification for NATO's attack on Serbia, now the outright terror bombing of civilians, was the Serbs' rejection of the "peace accords" drafted at Rambouillet in France in February.

The precise terms were never made public, with the British media generally accepting the word of the Foreign Office that the West's aim was to bring peace and autonomy to Kosovo.

This is the big lie of what Tony Blair calls a "crusade for civilisation". Anyone scrutinising the Rambouillet document is left in no doubt that the excuses given for the subsequent bombing were fabricated.

The peace negotiations were stage-managed and the Serbs were told: Surrender and be occupied, or don't surrender and be destroyed. The impossible terms, recently published in full in Le Monde Diplomatique, but not in Britain, show that NATO's aim was the occupation not only of Kosovo, but effectively all of Yugoslavia.

Nothing like this ultimatum has been put to a modern, sovereign European state. Of all the Hitler and Nazi analogies that have peppered the West's propaganda, one is never mentioned - Hitler's proposal to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 that he occupy Czechoslovakia because ethnic Germans there had been "tortured", "forced to flee the country" and "prevented from realising the right of nations to self-determination". As a cover for German expansion, Hitler was laying the basis for a "humanitarian intervention", whose fraudulence was no greater than that planned by NATO 61 years later as a cover for its own expansion as the American-led military wing of "globalisation".

Take chapter seven of the accords. Headed Status of Multinational Military Implementation Force, it says the NATO general commanding the occupation "shall have the sole authority" to take virtually any action he liked, such as shooting down aircraft inside Serbia. NATO would have complete and unaccountable political power, with its occupying force "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative or criminal [and], under all circumstances and at all times, immune from [all laws] governing any criminal or disciplinary offences which may be committed by NATO personnel in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ... NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including associated airspace and territorial waters".

Propaganda is not overlooked. The Government of Yugoslavia "shall, upon simple request, grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for [the occupation], as determined by NATO. This shall be free of cost." And the ideological basis for the occupation is left in no doubt. "NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rail and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tolls or charge. The economy shall function in accordance with free market principles."

No government anywhere could accept this. It was an outrageous provocation. On March 19, the Kosovo Liberation Army, which Madeleine Albright and Robin Cook had earlier dismissed as terrorists, signed the "accords". The Serbs, of course, refused. And it was not just Milosevic. The elected Yugoslav Parliament, reported The New York Times correspondent in Belgrade, "rejected NATO troops in Kosovo [but] supported the idea of a United Nations force to monitor a political settlement there". To my knowledge, this was not reported in Britain. If it was, it was lost in the media mantra demonising Milosevic. So what amounted to a viable alternative to bombing could be ignored in Washington and Brussels. Five days later, NATO attacked. The Serbs had been nicely stitched up.

Moreover, there is substantial evidence that the bombing was preordained. On August 12 last year, the US Senate Republican Policy Committee commented: "Planning for a US-led NATO intervention in Kosovo is now largely in place. The only missing element seems to be an event - with suitably vivid media coverage - that would make the intervention politically salable ... That Clinton is waiting for a 'trigger' in Kosovo is increasingly obvious."

On March 25, the day after the bombing began, British Defence Secretary George Robertson described NATO's aim as "clear cut". It was, he said, "to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe by disrupting the violent attacks currently being carried out by the Yugoslav security forces against the Kosovan Albanians". A United Nations report contradicted this, putting the balance of violence between Serb and Albanian paramilitaries at roughly equal, and nothing approaching the level of violence that the bombing unleashed. A CIA warning to Clinton, leaked to the American press, made clear that the bombing was likely to spark mass ethnic cleansing.

On April 30, sitting among top military brass on HMS Invincible, the bellicose George Robertson said NATO had never expected to prevent a humanitarian disaster. This was the very opposite of his "clear-cut" announcement five weeks earlier. Like Clinton, he and Blair must have been forewarned of the catastrophic refugee disaster their actions would ignite.

General Satish Nambiar, an Indian, was the Head of the United Nations Mission in Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1993. Recently, he wrote: "I felt that Yugoslavia was a media-generated tragedy ... The Yugoslav Government had, after all, indicated its willingness to abide by nearly all provisions of the Rambouillet 'agreement' on aspects like ceasefire, greater autonomy to the Albanians and so on. But they would not agree to station NATO forces on the soil of Yugoslavia.

"This is precisely what India would have done under the same circumstances. It was the West that proceeded to escalate the situation under the current senseless bombing campaign that smacks more of hurt egos, revenge and retaliation. NATO's massive bombing appears no different from the morality of the actions of the Serb forces in Kosovo."

Two more articles by John Pilger

The following two articles are taken from the latest edition of Green Left Weekly:

http://www.pwg.apc.org/~greenleft

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

'The most rapacious imperial power in history’

By John Pilger

When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima after Japan had all but surrendered, the front page of the Daily Express said: "This is a warning to the world". As US missiles and bombs attack a sovereign European state, it is another warning to the world. The most powerful and rapacious imperial power in history is rampant.

With the restraining "balance" of the Soviet Union long gone, the US will stop at nothing to dominate human affairs by the most violent means allowed by its technology. This includes nuclear weapons. For the junior Lord Haw-Haws of the British media, notably those who promote a "just war" or the war of "our generation", having never seen a shot fired, this truth is unspeakable.

It is a truth illuminated vividly by the assault on Serbia. The bombing has nothing to do with humanitarian concern for the suffering people of Kosovo.

On the contrary, "the West" has consistently used humanitarian rhetoric to justify intervening in the Balkans, mostly on the side of regional power, often the Milosevic regime. As Bruce Kent has pointed out, during the long years the Albanians of Kosovo peacefully resisted their oppressors, the guardians of humanity in Washington, London and Brussels gave not a damn.

Only when a Kosovar liberation army was formed, and there was a threat to Serbia, did NATO take an interest. Last October, the United States drafted a pro-Serbian plan for the Kosovars, giving them a fake autonomy with far less freedom than they had under the old Yugoslav constitution.

Similarly, it was a US plan, devised by former secretary of state Cyrus Vance in 1992, that handed Milosevic and the fascist Bosnian Serbs the entire arsenal of former Yugoslavia. Thereafter, the people of Bosnia hardly stood a chance. NATO navies in the Adriatic Sea and British troops at Bosnian airports enforced an arms embargo against the Sarajevo government. The US-arranged Dayton "peace accords" legitimised the ethnic cleansing; the wishes of the people of Bosnia were ignored and US power was asserted.

Today, NATO is bombing Serbia because Milosevic-like Saddam Hussein in 1990 -- gave the Americans the excuse they wanted. The man was not following orders. He was not subduing the Kosovars as they dictated. He had become all too flagrant, allowing his troops to slaughter people and leave their bodies to be filmed by Western television.

The real reason for the bombing is to ensure, as the US special envoy to the Balkans Richard Holbrooke admitted, "the credibility of NATO". In other words, the US wants to demonstrate an imperial design that will dispense with the United Nations: what George Robertson, its factotum in Whitehall, calls "outreach".

"Nowhere in the world is so far away", said Robin Cook recently, "that it is not relevant to our security interests". The imperial bellicosity of this disgraceful statement shows that the US, with the Blair establishment in tow, is not only using NATO to control Europe’s military forces, but is preparing the alliance for imperial action outside Europe. This is what Robertson means by "outreach"; Washington calls it "out of area".

As they bomb Serbia without a shred of legality, they refer to "an emerging international law". It is the law of pirates.

Behind this is the impatience of the imperial godfathers to complete their most urgent post-Cold War project: the establishment of an oil protectorate all the way from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. With this as their aim, the US and Britain have imposed genocidal economic sanctions on the people of Iraq, thus preventing Saddam Hussein, an uppity former favourite, from selling his high-grade oil and competing with Saudi Arabia, the all-time favourite and arms client.

NATO is to be the policeman of this expanded oil colony. It is an irony for the regime in Belgrade that, while the US is opposed to an independent Kosovo and Milosevic is actually a State Department favourite, the attack on his country is too good an opportunity to pass up. It demonstrates to the world what NATO is really for, in the same way that the Gulf "war" demonstrated US power when US economic dominance appeared under threat from Europe and Japan.

Watching Tony Blair’s unctuous performance on television last week, with his references to his "longest hours" waiting for the pilots who were bombing "in the name of humanity and peace" to return, one wondered: is he a Christian zealot? That would explain the hypocritical moralising. No, he is a standard cynic, who wants to play with the Big Boy. What is striking is his deception; he knows the dangers and he is not telling the nation he leads.

He is not telling us that more Kosovars have been terrorised as a result of the bombing, and that our brave allied pilots have killed several hundred civilians far from Kosovo. He is not telling us that the homicidal US military is prepared to "degrade and destroy" Serbia as it has done to Iraq, as it did to Vietnam, General Wesley Clark’s atrocious alma mater.

He is not telling us that, as a result of NATO’s expansion, the defence ministry in Moscow has formulated plans to deploy new tactical nuclear weapons near Russia’s western border and, according to one authoritative source, has dropped its long-standing doctrine of "no first use".

The prime minister is not telling us any of that because he and his fellow bombers are engaged in a historic act of criminal irresponsibility.

[This article first appeared in the New Statesman.]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How the media fan war

By John Pilger

At the height of World War I, the British PM, David Lloyd George, confided to C.P. Snow, editor of the Manchester Guardian, "If people knew the truth, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But they don’t know and can’t know."

Little has changed. Eight years ago, following the US-led attack on Iraq, newspaper editorials in the West lauded "the miraculously few casualties". In truth, up to 250,000 people were killed or died in the immediate aftermath. Many were the very Kurdish and Shi’a minorities US President Bush and his allies said they were protecting.

Now NATO has bombed residential areas of the capital of Kosova, terrorising and killing the people President Clinton says he is protecting. The bombers were "seduced off target", said the press briefer in Brussels, an astonishing statement that went unchallenged.

The US is using A-10 Warthog aircraft, armed with depleted uranium missiles. Depleted uranium was used in southern Iraq where the level of leukemia among children is equal to that of Hiroshima. Hundreds of allied soldiers who served in the Gulf have been similarly affected. With one or two honourable exceptions, the media are silent about this.

So, the truth about why tens of thousands stampeded in Kosova is blurred. No-one doubts Milosevic’s brutality; but before March 23, the UN put the balance of atrocities caused by Serb and Kosovar para- militaries as roughly even.

Voluntary and subliminal censorship is a taboo subject in free societies. One of the most effective functions of "communicators" in the Western media is to minimise the culpability of established powers in war, terrorism and the repression of human rights. This is achieved by repetition of received truths and omission on a grand scale.

Last month, British defence secretary George Robertson claimed that all bombing targets were approved by him and Tony Blair. The US must have found this laughable. Robertson has not been challenged on who had the say of life or death over workers in the Zastava car factory. NATO was warned that 10,000 people were in the plant, yet bombed it, causing an unknown number of fatalities and injuries.

The people of the mining town of Alecksinac had nothing to do with Kosova and they were bombed. Who was responsible for the killing of an old woman whose legs we glimpsed protruding from beneath the rubble of her home?

There are striking parallels with the US assault on Vietnam. Like Vietnam, the attack on Serbia is a liberal adventure. The bombers of Clinton’s New Democrats and Blair’s New Labour are reminiscent of President John Kennedy’s New Frontiersmen, who liked nothing better than to "eyeball" the Russians and save people from themselves.

Then, as now, the media played a central role in organising the public’s ignorance and confusion. Stereotypes were important. Vietnamese communists were "Asian Prussians" guilty of "internal aggression" (wanting to liberate their country). An entirely fictitious attack on US warships was used to fool Congress and the press, providing the excuse to begin the slaughter. Later, Hollywood transformed the aggressors to angst-ridden heroes and the Vietnamese people to unpeople.

Today, the Serbs are the unpeople. They have no civilisation, no society, no poets, no history. That they suffered a Nazi savagery surpassed only by the mass extermination of the Polish Jews is forgotten. Like the woman in the rubble, they are unworthy victims.

The Kosovars, on the other hand, are worthy victims-until they seek asylum in other European countries. Careful readers will note they are seldom referred to as Muslims.

"News" of the liberal mission in the Balkans comes largely from daily briefings in Brussels, conducted by a PR man called Jamie and a spin- doctor from the RAF. Standing in front of flags, they remind me of the briefers at the "five o’clock follies" in Saigon who intoned their "interdictions" and "degradation" and "collateral damage" with hardly anyone believing a word, yet almost everyone reporting it.

Today, the unreported news is of a man-made, entirely unnecessary cataclysm in the Balkans, affording Clinton and Blair a special distinction among modern Western readers; they share with a European tyrant the responsibility for virtually emptying a country, leaving its people to fester like the Palestinians, perhaps for generations.

They also share responsibility for destroying the democratic opposition in Serbia. "The air strikes erased in one night", wrote Professor Volin Dimitrijevic, the Serb former vice-chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights, "the results of 10 years of hard work by courageous people. The Kosova problem will remain unsolved, and human rights in Serbia uncertain, for many years."

The real news is that the US is planning to "degrade" Serbia with the same ferocity it destroyed Vietnam and is now destroying Iraq. This week’s Boys’ Own Annual media images of massing aircraft and ships serve to conceal the fact that the homicidal "turkey shoots" are coming.

The importance of this is a precursor to a future militarised by NATO. The US Congress has passed the "Nato Facilitation" acts, which allow the greatest expansion of US military influence since World War II. Clinton has ended a 20-year-old arms embargo on most of Latin America, and the re-arming of that continent is under way.

In the current "NATO Review", Argentina is welcomed as "NATO’s south Atlantic partner". In eastern Europe, a $55 billion bonanza beckons for US and British arms companies. These developments have been scarcely reported in the West.

At the same time, neutral or non-aligned states have been cajoled and bribed into joining "NATO’s Partnership for Peace". Albania, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Macedonia and Slovenia have joined. Ireland is next.

NATO describes this as "the most intensive program of military-to- military collaboration ever conceived". The threat to us all, and to our children’s generation, is written on the bombs now falling on the Balkans and Iraq. That is the real news.